Andy in Barcelona

The lack of non Sky coverage is poor, I personally think the BBC should concentrate some more of the licence fee on covering at least the British players, we have a solid dubs team in Fleming and Hutchins and when we will we ever have two brothers playing dubs again? Make the most of it, the Murray factor in Scotland has had a tremendous influence on the numbers of kids trying the sport, maybe the BBC could be influential with a bit more coverage for kids all over the UK. I am a proud Scot and immensely proud that our small nation has produced the best British tennis player in 70 years and part of me will always wonder about whether the treatment dished out to Andy would have been different had he been from the other side of the Border. Part of Djoko's rise to the top has been fuelled by his pride of being Serbian and being proud of where he comes from. It s so difficult for Andy to have the same pride (and believe me there is something immensely proud about being Scottish) but if he were to come out in a "Braveheart" fashion he would be villified by the press. I can't help but sometimes think that a blast of Loch Lomond or Flower of Scotland would get him over the finish line!!! Andy always has to be so PC that it must drive him mad at times, it really is a case of damned if he does and damned if he don't!!!

Tennis coverage is pretty pathetic. I'm not sure how much is down to lack of recording (e.g. Miami first five days) or just the sports channels not bothering to invest in covering tennis but it really is pathetic that they only cover the Slams, some of the Masters, and the occasional last couple of days of 500's if we're lucky.

For the BBC tennis only exists for one month in a year.

And yet they splash out millions on covering F1 (although I do love F1, I'd much rather the money be spent on the tennis and other less popular sports. Sky are doing a pretty great job with the F1 this year...)

Golf gets better coverage than tennis ffs.

The French Open is now being covered by ITV4 until at least 2014.

I'm very glad that, because I can't afford Sky, I watch tennis live-streamed on tennisTV.com - the ATP official live-stream - because it's streamed from ESPN and so I can watch tournaments Sky don't show. The annual sub is £75 but is worth every penny because the picture is high quality and you can watch "catch-up" videos of matches the day after they've been played. However they don't show Slams because they aren't run by the ATP.

The lack of non Sky coverage is poor, I personally think the BBC should concentrate some more of the licence fee on covering at least the British players, we have a solid dubs team in Fleming and Hutchins and when we will we ever have two brothers playing dubs again? Make the most of it, the Murray factor in Scotland has had a tremendous influence on the numbers of kids trying the sport, maybe the BBC could be influential with a bit more coverage for kids all over the UK. I am a proud Scot and immensely proud that our small nation has produced the best British tennis player in 70 years and part of me will always wonder about whether the treatment dished out to Andy would have been different had he been from the other side of the Border. Part of Djoko's rise to the top has been fuelled by his pride of being Serbian and being proud of where he comes from. It s so difficult for Andy to have the same pride (and believe me there is something immensely proud about being Scottish) but if he were to come out in a "Braveheart" fashion he would be villified by the press. I can't help but sometimes think that a blast of Loch Lomond or Flower of Scotland would get him over the finish line!!! Andy always has to be so PC that it must drive him mad at times, it really is a case of damned if he does and damned if he don't!!!

I do think he would get a lot more support tbh, so many people that claim to hate him use his nationality as a reason. It's pathetic it really is. Some football fans will constantly call him a "Scottish twat" but fail to remember that some of the greatest players in our clubs history (one has his own statue) were Scots.

I don't know if it's a form of jealousy, irrational hatred of Scots or just plain thick (probably all three) but I despair every time I see it.

And yes he does mention in his auto-biography how he's learnt to be very PC and bland in all his interviews because when he was more open and honest at the start of his career the British media would twist his words, take them out of context and try to make him look really arrogant or a prick.

Why is the British media/public so determined to shoot down it's most successful sportsmen? It's the same with Lewis Hamilton. It's like we don't want a winner. Other countries are really proud of their sportsmen and always back them. We try to bring them down at every opportunity. It's so frustrating. I imagine it must be more so for Andy but I think he's learnt to live with it now.

That's two rants in two posts now, one on tennis coverage one on idiot sport fans and the British media. Probably two of my biggest gripes with sport at the moment.

Well MadHatter I can assure you that there are a fair number of Scots who don't like Andy either, mainly, sad to say, because of his on-court behaviour which, let's face it, has, until very recently at least, often left quite a lot to be desired. They say that his swearing, shouting and tantrums is giving the Scots a bad image and that they feel that he's letting his country down. That he just happens to be Britain's best tennis player for over 70 years appears to have escaped them, and yet some of them claim to be tennis fans! Scottish pride, it seems, can be very choosy at times.

The attitude of Britons toward sports and British sportsmen really is strange. Does any other country in the world have fans like ours who berate their top sportsmen at any opportunity for any reason and a media who constantly try to twist their words, incite hate and bring them down?

Aileen and tmh - I think there is an element of anti-Scottish prejudice among my English compatriots. A recent study showed considerable hostility towards the Scots among the English and a declining identification with Britain and with England. So I guess if you think of yourself as English and not British then Andy is not 'one of us'. I don't but then I'm not nationalistic either and don't support Andy just because he's British. I think there's a social class factor as well. Tim Henman fitted the home counties image that many tennis fans identify with although I've heard from more than one source that he could be a complete **** off court but somehow that never got picked up.

The coverage of tennis is woeful. The only time you see it covered by the BBC is DC,Wimbledon, and QueensI bet if we did not have Andy it would be even less. I agree with what The Mad Hatter says about British sportmen the abuse they get from the general public is woeful. They are not appreciated at all and re Andy's swearing a lot of others do it but because they are not speaking English it is not understood. Also the commentators keep saying "please excuse the bad language" they are the one's who keep pointing it out.If they did not comment on it no one would bother about it. Andy should do his own thing and not worry about hostile comments. He will have to have a hide like a Rhino and just ignore all the stupid comments.

The coverage of tennis is woeful. The only time you see it covered by the BBC is DC,Wimbledon, and QueensI bet if we did not have Andy it would be even less. I agree with what The Mad Hatter says about British sportmen the abuse they get from the general public is woeful. They are not appreciated at all and re Andy's swearing a lot of others do it but because they are not speaking English it is not understood. Also the commentators keep saying "please excuse the bad language" they are the one's who keep pointing it out.If they did not comment on it no one would bother about it. Andy should do his own thing and not worry about hostile comments. He will have to have a hide like a Rhino and just ignore all the stupid comments.

I agree re the swearing littleb. Most of the time when the sky comm apologises I don't know what he's talking about as I can't lip read. It got so bad that Peter Fleming accused his co-comm of becoming like a broken record!

Ruthie:- I agree with you 100% there is an element of anti-Scottish prejudice as you say because he is not one of us (English) if you bring it up you are termed as a racist. It works both ways so that I think plays a big part of it. Andy as Ruthie says is not from the Home Counties and is not accepted as being from the right class. Anyway I think the South East of England seems to think it's the bees knees. From a recent survey even the people north of the Watford gap are feeling the results of the recession.People in the North of England it has always been so with high unemployment rates. So attitudes are very different the further North you go. People feel they are not included. The same applies to Scotland thus more people want to take charge of the economy and political decisions without a distant parliament at Westminister.